Liverpool's Hope Street hotel to add cinema and 62 bedrooms

Liverpool's first hotel cinema will be one of the key features of a 62-bedroom extension to the city's Hope Street hotel.

Set to open in the spring, the new element of the hotel is being created within the adjacent 1931 Grade II-listed Royal School for the Blind. In what is described as " a tremendously complex project", the transformed space will include a 40-seat cinema and bar, featuring pitch pine roof trusses, as well as a spa, swimming pool and a fifth-floor event space with two terraces.

The additional bedrooms will take the total room count at the four-AA-star hotel to 112.

Hope Street hotel has grown threefold since it opened in an 1860s Venetian palazzo-style warehouse by independent operator Dave Brewitt in 2004. The original Victorian interior will be carried through to the extension, with pink Cheshire brick walls, oak floors and cast iron pillars on display.

Brewitt said "This latest – and most ambitious – expansion is a tremendously complex project. Threading a new eight-storey building over, under and alongside the listed former Royal School for the Blind, and linking it to the existing hotel, has been a mammoth 3D jigsaw – all done while keeping the hotel open throughout.

"I am delighted to have been able to bring the 1851 and 1931 school buildings back into sustainable use. This development continues our original ambition to deliver exemplary hospitality on Hope Street."

Brewitt has overseen the interior design, with support from L7 Architects and Curveline Design on the spa.